Where Defeat Is Not An Option

Conditions: Between 12 and 18 weeks of gestation, the women must discuss the procedure with a social worker. After 18 weeks, permission must be obtained from the Board of Health and Welfare.

Abortions must be performed by a licensed medical practitioner and, except in cases of emergency, in a general hospital or other approved healthcare establishment…

Can you believe those knuckle-dragging, bitter-clingers of Texas trying to impose that kind of burden on a woman’s choice? The nerve of those Christo-fascists! Leave a woman’s vagina alone! Keep your Rosaries off their ovaries!

Oh, wait…that is Sweden’s abortion law….

When our liberals claim that we’re engaging in a “war on women” because we want reasonable restrictions and regulations on abortion, all we’re doing is bringing American law in line with the rest of the civilized world. Only a few Western nations ban abortion outright – Chile and Ireland being notable exceptions to the general run which allows abortion…but in almost all Western nations, only unrestricted in the first trimester. In a very real sense, only in America can a child a day or two away from birth be murdered at the sole discretion of the mother – and that is the situation our liberals wish not only keep, but to make government-subsidized and available to minors without parental knowledge or consent.

As you all know, I’m pro-life – I’d like us to mirror Chile and just ban abortions outright. We’re not, however, likely to get that any time soon – but we should at least be as cautious about abortion as the ultra-liberals of Europe, shouldn’t we? Isn’t human life worth at least something?

Bottom line, anyone who does not get on board with laws like that proposed in Texas – which really does no more than put a few restrictions on late-term abortions and require abortuaries to maintain minimum health standards – is essentially coming down on the side of infanticide.

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35 thoughts on “A Terrible, Horrible Anti-Choice Abortion Law”

The term “pro-choice” is in itself a lie, as it is not about “choice” at all.

A “choice” is a decision made after learning all the relevant facts, weighing them, and then making an informed choice based on information which has been considered and evaluated.

Nearly all abortions in this country are made with no information other than a panicky need to MAKE IT GO AWAY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The state of Colorado, in response to strident demands from the faction that calls itself “pro-choice”, agreed to use state funds to pay for abortions, under certain conditions. That is, a three-day waiting period after applying, counseling sessions with people who would offer alternatives to abortion, and visits with medical personnel who would explain the development of the fetus at that stage and do ultrasounds if at the right stage of pregnancy.

That is, to make sure that the “choice” was really a CHOICE, an informed decision made after gaining and then evaluating all the pertinent information need to make a real choice, and not just a panicked guess.

And,of course, the pro-death crowd went insane. Predictably, there was screeching about this being discriminatory, debasing of women, etc.

But the real message that came through was that the abortion industry—-and make no mistake, it IS an industry, a multi-billion-dollar industry with huge political donations to make sure it is protected—-is fully aware of the fact that a woman who gets past those first few days of panic and fear, who has time to sit down and discuss her situation with calm, objective professionals, who is made aware of her options, and who has a clear understanding of the actual stage of development of her unborn baby, is far less likely to put herself in the hands of those paid handsomely to kill babies like hers.

Of those of us conceived before the Pill became widely available, and even after that but when abortion was rightly abhorred as a brutal and shameful act, many of us if not most fell into that “Oh, NO!!!” reaction from our mothers when they learned they were pregnant. Sure, there were planned pregnancies, but many if not most were not. Yet the pattern remained clear—given a little time to get used to the idea, those women who had those first moments of panic came to not just accept those surprise babies but love them, long before they were born.

Panic at a new, unexpected and life-changing experience is natural. The callous promoters of death take advantage of this, and the pressure on a woman to kill her baby just because at the moment the whole idea of pregnancy and childbirth just seems too overwhelming to deal with is intense and unrelenting.

And once a woman has done this, and to some extent relinquished her right to be considered a ‘woman’ and become merely a female, she has pressure for the rest of her life to justify this action by defending abortion in general. It takes a strong and ethical woman to admit to doing something so wrong and admit that it was wrong, a crime against humanity. Many do, but many more find themselves frantically defending what they did, and by doing so defending the entire industry and culture of killing human beings because they are inconvenient.

I don’t know about how the law came about in Sweden, but I have an idea about how Italy imposed similar restrictions on abortion. What happened in Italy is there was a democratic vote not a supreme court decision. The inherent problem/advantage of supreme court decisions is they shouldn’t be amenable to slippery-slope arguments and thus in the US the ruling allows abortions well into the second trimester.

Conservatives should in general not look for help from the supreme court, instead they should hope things never get to the supreme court. The main exceptions being things that only the supreme court could overturn like Roe v. Wade etc.

ClusterJuly 6, 2013 / 9:00 pm

The Supreme Court has become a supreme joke. As has this country under the Obama regime. The court has found loopholes to approve legislation that shouldn’t even be in front of them in the first place, and King Obama single handedly decides which laws to enact, which to delay and which to ignore. They all just make it up as they go. It is beyond shameful.

AmazonaJuly 6, 2013 / 9:08 pm

We’ve become the biggest banana republic in the world, a place where law is determined by the Executive Branch and depends on Leftist agenda, a place where the will of the people is no longer important.

Yes, I do know that the SCOTUS is part of the Judicial Branch, but when it is populated by appointments from the Executive Branch it becomes nothing more than a hand puppet for the regime. Sotomayor and Kagan are jokes, unqualified aside from their kneepad allegiance to Dear Leader and his agendas, and their appointments made it clear that he was not looking for jurists but for rubber stampers.

AmazonaJuly 6, 2013 / 5:51 pm

Our Supreme Court has gotten out of control, and has now taken over the legislative process, allowing five unelected political appointees to MAKE law instead of simply comparing law to the Constitution and determining whether or not it is in compliance with Constitutional restrictions.

I don’t think many conservatives “look for help from the supreme court” as we realize it has been packed with Liberals and with the addition of Kagan, who did not even have the integrity to recuse herself on the Obamacare case even though she had previously been employed by the Obama Administration to support and defend it, it has become a travesty far worse than simply being biased.

neocon01July 7, 2013 / 6:55 am

Our Supreme Court has gotten out of control, and has now taken over the legislative process, allowing five unelected political appointees to MAKE law instead of simply comparing law to the Constitution and determining whether or not it is in compliance with Constitutional restrictions.

I am not a fan of abortion. I think it’s an abomination. For that matter (and as many people here know), I am even less of a fan of invitro fertilization. Considered logically, there is no other way to think about the latter except as a particularly selfish kind of abomination (we don’t care about life per se, we only care about OUR OWN GENES, regardless of how many embryos we flush down the toilet, or submit to freezer burn in the process!). But I have said many times, issues such as these require a mixture of reason and emotion, of logic and faith — of physics and metaphysics. And one does not necessarily inform the other. Moreover, as I have argued many times in the past, and especially in (though not limited to) cases where morality and logic intersect, if it were possible to eliminate politics from the equation, the outcome would be very different — and very much more consistent with technicolor reality. At any rate, one can at least require some consistency of thought by each individual approaching the question.

All that said, when I first heard about the proposed Texas law, like Mark I thought, “what’s the big deal”? In other words, it didn’t sound particularly restrictive vis-a-vis the issue of abortion as it is considered in other states (and developed countries). Then again, if you truly value personal choice to the extent that it doesn’t restrict your own, then the details of the proposed law make it quite a bit more problematic. As I understand it, the restrictions imposed by the law severely curtails the very concept of choice, no matter how well informed are those seeking the procedure, especially for folks in rural Texas who lack the ability to travel to a major metropolitan area.

Again, that may not be a problem if one is of a mind to impose one’s own morality on others irregardless of how directly it affects you, but it certainly is if you don’t. So again I wonder how anyone who claims themselves to be a “Libertarian”, or a “Constitutional Conservative” could condone such a law.

Let me add that Amazona did, indeed, weigh in on the issue. What she suggested is that those individuals confronting such a choice should be compelled — which is to say, even against their will if necessary — to make an informed choice. And especially if they expect “The Public” to pay for the procedure I wholeheartedly agree. But under such conditions I would expand on the topics she mentioned to include ALL of the potential external costs and benefits of the choice they are about to make. After all, only if the options are presented in a fair and balanced way — which is to say, only when they have considered ALL of the possible impacts of their decision might be on both themselves (which is personal) and society (which involves everyone) — can one reasonably absolve society from bearing any responsibility for the decision they make.

And that’s an important issue, because the message that is currently being transmitted by the GOP to the general public is something to the effect of: “we care about your right to life until you’re born”. And if that’s really the message, it sucks big time.

You can crucify me as the messenger, but the important question is what can you (the GOP) offer to change the message? And remember, it should be a public and secular message rather than a personal and sectarian one. If it’s not, the solution offered might be described as a Christian version of Sharia law?

ClusterJuly 7, 2013 / 6:45 pm

And that’s an important issue, because the message that is currently being transmitted by the GOP to the general public is something to the effect of: “we care about your right to life until you’re born”.

I must have missed that memo. I thought insisting on entitlement reform in regards to SS and Medicare was in effect telling the younger generation that we want those programs to be there for them, while the DNC’s insistence on not reforming them is in effect saying screw you to the younger generation.

I thought advocating for school choice was in effect saying that we care about their education and their future and want the best education possible for them, while the DNC was in effect saying screw you, stay where you’re at.

I thought advocating for smaller government and lower taxes was in effect saying that we want people to keep more of their own money and have the freedom to live their life as they choose, while the DNC was in effect saying screw you, do what we say.

It would have been nice if Cluster had commented on the subject at hand. But he didn’t so much as touch on it. Instead, he offered a general template on other topics, all of which fit neatly under a Libertarian/Constitutional interpretation of Conservatism, but which don’t come anywhere close to capturing the whole of the current platform of the GOP. And Cluster’s tactic — which is to say ignoring entire issues which don’t neatly fit into his personal meme (in this case abortion/right to a full life) — isn’t likely to help much.

To be viable on a national level the GOP can’t simply pay attention only to the issues which are most important to the sectors of the electorate they already do well in (that would be the kiss of death), they have to reach out to sectors of the electorate they do not now appeal to, but have a realistic opportunity to do so in the future. And that, it seems to me, requires some sort of out-reach to one or more groups hitherto considered by Amazona and others as “issues voters”.

That, I think, is an important statement. In fact, the more I think about the concept of “issue voter”, the less difference I see between the moral conservative bloc, the LGBT bloc, the Hispanic bloc, the African American bloc, or any other bloc of voters when it comes to concentrating on moral/social issues which are most important to them.

ClusterJuly 8, 2013 / 8:48 am

…….they (GOP) have to reach out to sectors of the electorate they do not now appeal to, but have a realistic opportunity to do so in the future.

To begin with, I specifically addressed your false claim that the GOP’s message is that they only care for people until they are born. Not that I want to conflate the GOP with conservatives, but every conservative ideal is to expand liberty and enrich lives. Unfortunately too many in the current GOP are more concerned about the next cocktail party than ideals.

If you would like me to address the overarching issue, than I will. The GOP needs to stand on principle, not on the emotional issue du jour, or trying to outdo the Democrats in pandering and giveaways. If you haven’t noticed, our country is a complete f***ing mess, and it is precisely because too many people vote for Democrats, who promise everything and deliver nothing. Government is not the solution to our problems, and the sooner people realize that the better off we will all be. Unfortunately, too many people, including you, are still of the mindset that cinservative principles equals unfairness.

As a GOPer, we have jobs to offer, Democrats have unemployment to offer.
Children need to be cared for by their parents from womb until they are old enough to go out on their own. Parents need jobs to put their children through school. Put food on the table for them. Buy them clothes, etc. Democrats are taking these responsibilities/freedoms away from people.

How many “above the table” jobs have you personally created in your life? My guess is none. But that particular lie is not just a knock against you, Jeremiah. The same woefully simple meme was used very effectively against Romney back in 2012. And it’s especially problematic given the (relative) tear the job market has been on the last few months.

…Democrats have unemployment to offer.

Are you saying the GOP wants to eliminate unemployment insurance?! If so, I suspect that’s not likely to garner them many votes.

Children need to be cared for by their parents from womb until they are old enough to go out on their own.

This is the only part of your soliloquy which was on-topic. And I think it really goes to the heart of the issue. Namely, if parents are required by law (i.e., by the state) to bring a child to term, then the state also has an obligation to ensure that said child has an equal opportunity, independent of their parents, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness until the age of maturity. Granted, that also is a simple meme, but is one which is ingrained in the most founding of our nation’s founding documents. By virtue of that fact alone, we should be erring on the side of realizing that ideal rather than on the side of destroying it.

Parents need jobs to put their children through school. Put food on the table for them. Buy them clothes, etc. Democrats are taking these responsibilities/freedoms away from people.

What good is a responsibility without the ability to meet it? We could get into a lengthy argument about which policies of one or the other party is/are responsible for reducing the number of living wage jobs in America, and whether that’s a good or a bad thing in the grand scheme. But as a short answer I think it pretty obvious that both parties bear a considerable amount of responsibility.

How many “above the table” jobs have you personally created in your life? My guess is none. But that particular lie is not just a knock against you, Jeremiah.

When I do well to keep my own head above water, it’s hard to hire someone to help me. It’s hard to stay afloat and pay half of everything you make in taxes.

Any Conservative will open doors if in power to help the working man, the middle man, not just the corporateers. And he will lower taxes so that he can provide a living for his family. Democrats are not interested in lowering taxes, or creating jobs.

AmazonaJuly 8, 2013 / 9:25 am

I see that rico is rico-ing again, making outrageous and ridiculous statements and then whining, in advance, that pointing this out will (according to him) be “crucifying” him.

Buried in his tortured rhetoric is the bizarre claim that “… the message that is currently being transmitted by the GOP to the general public is something to the effect of: “we care about your right to life until you’re born”. …” And then, if course, he challenges us to find a way to “….change the message…” even though it exists only in his fevered mind.

And he also claims “As I understand it, the restrictions imposed by the law severely curtails the very concept of choice….”

Well, how rico understands things very seldom has much relationship to what they really are, and this is another example.

He seems to be starting with the canard that abortion is, after all, really about “choice”. But so are other things we restrict or outlaw, such as murder of people outside the womb, theft, drunk driving, etc. One would think that someone who works sooooooo hard to project the image of a deep thinker would be able to figure that out.

As for the rest of that silly statement, the part about “… folks in rural Texas who lack the ability to travel to a major metropolitan area…” well, as usual, there’s really no way to figure out what this is supposed to relate to. And, as usual, it’s not worth any time to try to figure it out. Rural Texans can kill unborn babies in their own far-flung rural communities, giving them “choice”, but could not get themselves to “major metropolitan areas” which, presumably, are the only places they could talk to medical personnel or counselors or get ultrasounds.

Whatever.

He also seems to be saying (though, once again, as usual it is hard to figure out) that having laws is antithetical to believing in our Constitution.

Amazona: And then, if course, he challenges us to find a way to “….change the message…” even though it exists only in his fevered mind.

Apparently you don’t listen to or read the news most folks who don’t regularly vote GOP do, because you charge you call “bizarre” and “only in my head” is quite a common canard.

Amazona: Well, how rico understands things very seldom has much relationship to what they really are, and this is another example.

Except it’s not just me. And you would know that if you spent any time listening to real news, not just blogs. For example, it is also the understanding of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, among many others: “But the other aspects of the bill — from requiring operating rooms and hallways at clinics to be larger to making sure an abortion facility is within 30 miles of a hospital — could have the most dramatic impact, potentially forcing most abortion clinics in the state to shut their doors.”

But you’re probably right., “Rural Texans can” and probably will “kill unborn babies in their own far-flung rural communities.” But they will have to do it illegally, and thus potentially spend a considerable amount of time in jail, even if they make that choice within the first 20 weeks. So I think I got it right: the law severely curtails the very concept of choice.

Finally, there’s this: He seems to be starting with the canard that abortion is, after all, really about “choice”. But so are other things we restrict or outlaw, such as murder of people outside the womb, theft, drunk driving, etc. One would think that someone who works sooooooo hard to project the image of a deep thinker would be able to figure that out.

You don’t have to be much of a deep thinker to realize that, first, there is no Supreme Court precedent permitting the “murder of people outside the womb, theft, drunk driving, etc.” But there is a Supreme Court precedent permitting abortion in the first trimester. The SC decided it was the mother’s choice within that time period. And it did so by carefully weighing the Constitutional rights of the mother against those of the developing fetus. Personally, I hope the couple involved chooses against abortion, but I’m not so conceited as to impose my own morality on others. You, apparently, are. And considering you describe yourself as a Constitutional Conservative, and even an ideological purist in that regard, I find that curious. But it’s not just about you, it seems to be a logical disconnect for the GOP at large. Specifically, how does the Tea Party/Constitutional Conservative movement distinguish themselves from the older Moral Majority movement? Is there really any difference? And if not, why do you think the chances of the GOP in future national elections are going to change?

M. NoonanJuly 8, 2013 / 9:35 pm

Ricorun,

The only possible thing in the Constitution which can apply to abortion is the right to life (its in the Fifth Amendment – that one doesn’t just provide a cowardly out for Obama officials). The Constitution is silent on all other aspects of the issue and thus any rational Court would have to find in favor of the unborn child who is, without a doubt, alive. There is no right to privacy even implied in the Constitution – we are to be secure in our persons but only against government interference with such…not as to whether or not laws will prohibit the taking of a life for whatever reason. The Supreme Court – as per usual with the Court – got it wrong (seriously, most of the time throughout American history the Courts have screwed the pooch and ruled precisely incorrectly on the issues brought before it). The Court gets it wrong because of an itch among Justices to decide political issues rather than do their only job – the rather boring task of deciding “is it legal?”.

Of course, our Founders recognized the problem of judicial idiocy – while understanding that Courts are the sad necessity of a Republic they were in no ways inclined to allow Judicial tyranny – and to protect us from this, they provided this right smack dab in the middle of the enumeration of Judicial powers in the Constitution:

…In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make… (emphasis added)

There is, by the way, nothing in the Constitution dictating the size of the Supreme Court. We can increase it to 57 or decrease it to 1 by mere Congressional action. Keep that in mind once we get a GOP President and Congress, again – we’ll pack that court six ways to Sunday, if need be, to get this judicial tyranny off our necks. That said, the way to relieve ourselves of many judicial idiocies is to simply pass a law:

All cases which involve marriage and abortion shall not be subject to Federal appellate review.

Boom. Done. Marriage and abortion now become entirely State matters – and we’ve fired a warning shot across the Judicial bow instructing the Justices to keep to their station. They’ll wise up and stick to ruling on law rather than trying to make it.

And, so, stop trying to make out that there is some difficult issue here – a group of black-robed morons back in the 70’s decided they wanted abortion legal and so made it so in the face of a cowardly Executive and Legislature who refused to act against such twaddle. Once we get any kind of Executive and Legislature with some backbone, we’ll fix this.

AmazonaJuly 9, 2013 / 10:22 am

rico says, in his usual impenetrable prose, “… because you charge you call “bizarre” and “only in my head” is quite a common canard….”

He is, I think, referring to my response to his goofy statement that “.… the message that is currently being transmitted by the GOP to the general public is something to the effect of: “we care about your right to life until you’re born”. ……”

He admits this IS a canard, though he seems to think that being common mitigates its inherent wrongness.

Interesting that he finally admits to being uninterested in doing his own thinking, preferring to say in effect that if enough other people say something that is good enough for him. Naturally, he would not take the next step of evaluating what these people have been saying, much less what bias might lie behind it or what agenda it might be advancing, to determine its validity.

Nope. Not rico. He seems to think that regurgitating a steaming pile of anti-conservative nonsense means he is a political pundit.

AmazonaJuly 9, 2013 / 10:27 am

rico’s overheated imagination at work again: Regarding the Roe v Wade decision, he has decided that “… did so by carefully weighing the Constitutional rights of the mother against those of the developing fetus…”

Really? Gee, rico, why don’t you just quote the part of that decision where the justices explain just how much attention they gave to, regarding Constitutional rights, “…those of the developing fetus…”

And where any reference was made to the Constitutional rights of the female gestator determined to end that human life, other than the imagined “emanation of a penumbra” of an invented “right to privacy” which they then decided trumps the inherent right to life of the doomed unborn child.

AmazonaJuly 11, 2013 / 9:45 am

rico preens “… I’m not so conceited as to impose my own morality on others.” and then he snarls “You, apparently, are…”

I wonder what he considers to be the origin of any law. Because every single law we have is based on the application of someone’s morality on others. So even if one has a personal belief that there is nothing wrong with taking property of another, or with killing someone he doesn’t like, or even with just driving while drunk, he is still going to be subjected to the imposition of the morality of others.

rico may find this offensive, but I think it necessary to a civilized society. rico may find the decision of some to outlaw things like theft, murder or DUI as “conceit” but then he has a distorted view of things in general and this is of no more value than his other odd ways of looking at things.

Am I in favor of this kind of imposition of morality? You’re damned right I am.

And rico can limit his conceit to posting rambling semi-coherent uber-verbose musings.

And not to be forgotten in this chaos, was the progressive medias love with Obama’s deft handling of the situation just a year ago:

CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: You know, gentlemen, I’m a little bit jubilant right now, a little bit frisky so I’ll say something that will bother people. But if you have, a lot of the people in this country think the President of the United States is Muslim, which he’s not, he’s Christian. They think he’s foreign born, which he’s not, he’s American born. But they have this attitude about him, the people on the right a lot of them, right? And here he is, and he comes into office, and this jubilant situation in Eqypt, with the first time in our lives we get to see people from the Arab world in a very positive democratic setting. Not as terrorists or not as people fighting Israel, or whatever. Not mouthing epithets against the West, but people like us.

DAVID CORN, MOTHER JONES: Right, celebrating.

MATTHEWS: In a way it’s like it took Obama to have this happen, or it’s just so serendipitous.

neocon01July 8, 2013 / 4:52 pm

I simply love it when lefties come here to tell us how to beat them in the coming election(s) by becoming more like them…..LOL X1000

neocon01July 8, 2013 / 4:56 pm

reek-O rails against the GOP……wonder why??
Hmmmmmm couldnt be you have a few ILLEGALS hiding in your wood pile eh reek-O??

neocon: reek-O rails against the GOP……wonder why?? Hmmmmmm couldnt be you have a few ILLEGALS hiding in your wood pile eh reek-O??

You’re welcome to come over and check. As to the central question, I rail against the existing GOP because I believe it’s dying, and with no viable replacement. I believe it’s dying precisely because it’s been taken over by narrow-minded zealots and ideologues, such as you, who either cannot see the big picture in the first place, or choose to ignore it even if they do see it. Said in another way, if the GOP (or whatever its replacement is) can’t find a way to tolerate a wider variety of views (as they used to), it will remain a minority party.

Retired SpookJuly 9, 2013 / 7:00 am

I believe it’s dying precisely because it’s been taken over by narrow-minded zealots and ideologues, such as you, who either cannot see the big picture in the first place, or choose to ignore it even if they do see it.

What a load of crap. Would that the GOP were taken over by the likes of Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. Then at least it would be an alternate choice. And if they can’t develop a message that appeals to people’s better senses, well then the demise of the GOP is the least of our worries.

neocon01July 9, 2013 / 9:15 am

Spook
@ reek-O…..What a load of crap
BINGO
voting fraud in national “elections” is rampid, last time I looked GOP governors, state houses, senates favored the GOP Hmmmm hard to figure when LOCAL elections clearly show a strong GOP? not really.
We put forth the worst candidates in the last two cycles and they lost by a sliver due to conservatives staying home and holding their nose, and donk voting fraud.
yet the donk trolls and morons like reek-O preach to us how to BEAT them by being them….ROTFLMAO…….Riiiight Pee Wee

neocon01July 9, 2013 / 9:36 am

reek-O
GOP “narrow minded zealots and ideologues”?? LOL🙂🙂🙂

no narrow minded zealots and ideologues in this group eh??
no radical ILLEGAL, la raza zealots in the donk party?
no radical homosexual zealots in the in the donk party?
no radical union zealots in the donk party?
no radical pro abortion zealots in the donk party?
no radical racist black zealots in the donk party?
no radical islamist zealots in the donk party?
no radical communist zealots in the donk party?
no radical leftist zealots in the donk party?
no radical OWS zealot goons in the donk party?
no radical atheist zealot fools in the donk party?
no radical fascist zealots in the donk party?

yeah….. I think I will stick with my Bible, God, and guns..you know the WORKING TAX paying 53% YOU can have the rest and your filthy party that they own.

And, IMO, the canard that the Donkeys will become a permanent majority is also a false premise. The Democrats’ agenda is, in itself, a self-defeating prophesy. None of their policies have ever done anything but make more people more dependent on government. By 1994, it had taken 40 years of constantly lurching left to finally affect a right turn. In 2010, it had only taken 4 years of Democrat Congressional control and 2 years of Executive branch control for people to be fed up, yielding gains of 63 House seats, 6 Senate seats, 4 governorships and nearly 700 state legislative seats. Look for a repeat in 2014.

AmazonaJuly 9, 2013 / 11:26 am

Chrissie Matthews being “frisky”…where is mind bleach when you really need it?

Mark: The only possible thing in the Constitution which can apply to abortion is the right to life (its in the Fifth Amendment – that one doesn’t just provide a cowardly out for Obama officials).

Actually, the SC keyed on the 14th Amendment, though not to the exclusion of others.

Amazona: Really? Gee, rico, why don’t you just quote the part of that decision where the justices explain just how much attention they gave to, regarding Constitutional rights, “…those of the developing fetus…”

Are you kidding? Have you ever read the Roe v Wade opinion? If you did, what would you have me do, quote big chunks of it, including footnotes?? I’m sorry hon, I can’t do your homework for you. But, if you’re looking for a short answer, consider the third of the “Held” items in the summary (Syllabus): 3. State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother’s behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman’s qualified right to terminate her pregnancy. Though the State cannot override that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman’s health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a “compelling” point at various stages of the woman’s approach to term. Pp. 147-164.

And again, as far as I can tell, there is nothing in your “Constitutional Conservative”/Libertarian ideology which contradicts anything the SC said in Roe v. Wade. You, like Mark and others of a similar persuasion, have to impose your own morality on others to make the idea that “human life begins at conception”. BTW, the Roe v Wade decision goes into quite some detail on that point, too. At any rate, Amazona, your responses on this post make it clear that you can no longer claim that you are driven by pure ideology. You have revealed yourself to be as much of an issues based voter as those you rail against.

M. NoonanJuly 9, 2013 / 9:22 pm

You kidding? The 14th Amendment, in re: abortion, is pro-life:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

I know the SC made up some BS and tried to tack it on to the Constitution, but the operative thing is still that they just made up some BS – they wanted abortion legal and so they did it, Constitution be damned.

Spook: What a load of crap. Would that the GOP were taken over by the likes of Mike Lee, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. Then at least it would be an alternate choice. And if they can’t develop a message that appeals to people’s better senses, well then the demise of the GOP is the least of our worries.

Yeah, a national party dominated by Tea Party favorites. Smart thinking. I’m sure that’ll be a real winner. My guess is… no, it won’t be a winner. And as the necessity of urbanization progresses, it’s not even a viable plan on a state-wide level. And once the GOP begins to lose state-wide elections in places where they reliably won, then even districts are in peril. And if districts are in peril, then even the HoR is in peril. And that is NOT the least of our worries, no matter what the name of the opposition party which will result.

Retired SpookJuly 9, 2013 / 11:15 pm

Yeah, a national party dominated by Tea Party favorites. Smart thinking. I’m sure that’ll be a real winner.

I realize the media has done everything possible to downplay what happened just 2-1/2 years ago, but, as JR noted, an election dominated by Tea Party candidates gained “63 House seats, 6 Senate seats, 4 governorships and nearly 700 state legislative seats.”. I don’t know how you define “a real winner”, but that was the most real winner in 7 decades.

I would further point out that the conflict within the GOP right now is that one side believes that, in order to appeal to a broader base, certain principles must be abandoned or, at the very least, watered down, while the other side believes that we just need to do a better job of selling the principles that have made this country the greatest nation in the history of the world.

AmazonaJuly 10, 2013 / 1:40 pm

rico, you must be in rico-heaven, spinning wildly as you are from one argument to another yet never grasping the core idea of any of them. You are the less-charming Rosanne Rosannadanna of the blog.

As usual, your “ideas” are so muddled and chaotic it is hard to figure out just what you are trying to say or how you got to that feverswamp of misunderstanding where you formulate them.

I was responding to your claim that the Supreme Court actually weighed the Constitutional rights of the unborn against those of females in whose wombs they temporarily reside. I know you are always seeking a way to express your cattiness, but really, rico, to jump from this to your claim that my conservative credentials have been weakened by my response is patently silly, even for you.

Yes, HON, I have read Roe vs Wade, though not for some time now, and not with the intent of memorizing bits of it just in case I might run across a quibbler like you. I have a feeling you never read it at all, at least not till I challenged you to quote the bits where the justices considered the Constitutional right of the unborn to the right to life. The bit you quoted does not support your assumption.

There are several pieces of information in that quote, which I doubt you have examined, so let’s just take a quick peek at them, OK, HON?

Let’s start with the acknowledgement that this is a statement of OPINION, shared by five people who happen to have been appointed to the Court. Every word is what they have come up with based upon their own agendas, beliefs and biases, heavily seasoned with Wishful Thinking.

…. the right to privacy…” Funny how this “right” never came up until these five people decided it was there. And even then, they had to tacitly admit it is not there, not really, but that they somehow managed to perceive an aura of such a right, which they called a “penumbra”. And even then, they had to move a step beyond this spectral “right” to its “emanation” to come up with something upon which they could hang their ruling. So in their own ruling they admit they made it based on an intuitive sense of a vague emanation from an unsubstantiated aura that appeared to them, somehow, perhaps in the general vicinity of an actual right but never actually identified as such.

What they were saying is that they believed there SHOULD be such a right.

Then they went on, building upon this shaky foundation, expanding this emanation of a penumbra of an unstated “right” to state that it includes the “right” to, as they say in their carefully sanitized wording, “..terminate her pregnancy…” . Hmmmm. Nothing there to acknowledge that the very act of terminating her pregnancy hinges upon the destruction of another human life. Not only is the Court not exactly weighing the Constitutional rights of the unborn against those of the gestating female in your example, the Court is carefully tiptoeing around the fact that there even IS another life at stake. In your example, the only person whose existence is overtly acknowledged is a woman, and then only in the context of this misty emanation from this sensed “right” to engage in an act which, if one did not understand the context of the whole argument, would involve only her.

And even then the Court states that this “right”—which is based upon that other ephemeral “right” that they sensed as a penumbra of, one must assume, something else—is QUALIFIED. That is, not absolute.

Then the Court inches, ever so slowly and reluctantly, toward this other life that is really the crux of the argument, much as they want to pretend it is irrelevant to the real issue of the “right to PRIVACY”, by muttering something about “..the potentiality of human life…” Huh? POTENTIALITY???? What weasel words.

It’s actually quite a weaselly statement, as it implies that a woman’s health is to be considered, and states that her “right” to “terminate her pregnancy” is QUALIFIED, and tap dances around the fact that the “termination” is of the life of a human being, by muttering something purposely vague about the POTENTIALITY of human life.

Oh, but it gets better! Because, you see, the State (according to these justices) has “a legitimate interest in PROTECTING……….”protecting what? you might ask.

Well, suddenly the State has lurched into having a “legitimate interest” in protecting the HEALTH of a woman. Hmmmm. Didn’t see that anywhere in the Constitution. (You know, the Constitution—-that document the Court has been assigned specifically to apply to any law to ensure that it complies with it.) Went through the 17 enumerated duties assigned to the State, and by golly never found the feds mandated by the Constitution to protect the health of anyone. The life, yes. The health? Not so much.

And then the Court waffles again, because they know they are on thin ice here. They have invented a “right” which can be found, much like night vision, not by looking directly at it but only by perceiving its emanations from a penumbra of—-well, of something, I guess. Then they have built upon that “right” the “right” for a woman to “terminate her pregnancy”. But now they are uncomfortably close to ruling outright that some people have the “right” to decide whether or not the life of another is of any value, if it can be destroyed at will. And they skirt this issue by merely mumbling something about the POTENTIALITY of life, and then trying to defend their position by inventing yet another claim—-that this “legitimate interest” “…. grows and reaches a “compelling” point at various stages of the woman’s approach to term.”

again….Huh?

So the State has a legitimate interest in protecting a woman’s health, but this interest is not absolute, either, as it seems quite indeterminate, “growing” as they said until it becomes a “compelling” interest, which seems to depend upon her stage of pregnancy. After her pregnancy ends, it appears the State no longer has a legitimate interest in protecting her health which means the justices discovered a “legitimate interest” in protecting the health of only pregnant women and only during the term of their pregnancies. And this interest, which evidently begins at the beginning of her pregnancy, grows until it becomes “compelling” before it just disappears. How odd. And there is the implication that the State might, at some point, somewhere along this timeline, find a “compelling” interest in protecting the POTENTIALITY of life. But they are careful to not too specific about that other life that is supposed to be the focal point of the entire case.

Gee, nowhere in your citation do I see the slightest hint of weighing the Constitutional right to life of an unborn child against the Constitutional rights of the female. What I do see is convoluted weasel worded dodging around the simple fact that the ruling will allow some people to kill other people, with protection of the State.

As to your effort to attack me by claiming that my response has diminished my credibility as a Constitutional Conservative, all you are doing is showcasing your utter and absolute ignorance, as my response is totally consistent with my political ideology of governing the nation according to the Constitution and not by whim, agenda or expedience.

As just one more in such a long line of examples of your ignorance and intellectual dishonesty, you say: You have revealed yourself to be as much of an issues based voter as those you rail against.

Really? Just where in anything I have said have I made even the slightest reference to voting? Or have you discovered an emanation of a penumbra of a tendency to vote on issues? In fact, this sentence is such an example of the merging of stupidity, lying and malice it can stand as a monument to All That Is Rico.

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